not to insult, but your letter is the best gash of writing, straight on through that I have seen in some time. would like to use, will use in Laugh Literary #2 if you don’t mind. #2 will be larger, easier to read with the eye, but emphasis still on CONTENT. # uno issue almost sold out, went very fast. I think that it is simply a matter of certain people knowing that your blood and guts are in the thing, instead of some kind of con. Most all of everything is con. But it seems that there are 500 people in the world who can tell the difference between con and the other. In the next issue, we are going to clown a bit, but the kind of laughter that comes up through the mouth after being hit with a sledgehammer. I believe that some names are going to be named and some assholes torn. But I am very very tired of the standardized type of little mag stuff. and after standing 8 or 10 hours a night talking with the dolts about who won the old ball game, or whether Namath has a right to own a bar full of thugs while quarterbacking for the Jets—well, shit. I am not just going to turn out a little old ladies’ magazine, I hope. the death-toll they count over me in their fucking pigs’ pen is a pain that I have never been able to adjust to—and I am going to spit some shit back into somebody’s eye—not out of vengeance—because some of what has happened to me is my own FAULT (or so I am told), but the life-juice spit of a dying man will not, I hope, be without a vernacular of its own.

and as I work less and less in their pig pens, now, at least, for the time being—some luck comes my way—the fucking Penguin 13—you pushing little buttons in the land of my birth-translating my slimy greasy cunt stories—and please take liberties—I trust your soul all the way through—you know what I mean

I gave your letter to the two or 3 trusted that I know, and even those I do not entirely trust, and they laughed, each of them, reading certain phrases out loud. This is always the test: THE ULTIMATE TRUTH, NO MATTER HOW TRAGIC, THE ULTIMATE TRUTH ALWAYS MAKES A MAN LAUGH HIS BALLS OFF SIMPLY BECAUSE IT IS SO GOOD, SO ON THE MARK.